The Eve of the Death of President Edgar Lungu
…one year gone frozen but not forgotten
Amb. AM 5 |June 26.
Tomorrow 5 June 2025, Zambia’s sixth President, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, exhaled his final breath in a Pretoria hospital, felled by a sudden cardiac complication.
Born on 11 November 1956 in Ndola to Padule Saili Lungu and Tasila Jere, his odyssey from dusty classrooms to State House reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, triumphs and betrayals stitched together, ending in a silence that leaves Zambia divided and Africa aghast.
His roots were humble: Ishuko Primary, Mukuba Secondary, then National Service. A lawyer at ZCCM, a company secretary at a bank, later partner at Masiye and Partners in Lusaka.
At MILTEZ, Zambia’s Sandhurst, he earned the title “Officer and Gentleman.” Yet destiny tugged him into politics.
In 2011, he captured Chawama, catching the eye of Michael Sata, who elevated him from deputy minister to Home Affairs.
“Alikwata umutima uusuma umwaiche uyu,” said often said in local bemba meaning: “the youngman has a good heart.”
When President number five Sata died in London in 2014 on 28 October, Lungu clawed through a crowded field, narrowly defeating Mr Hakainde Hichilema to become Zambia’s sixth president.
His presidency was a builder’s tale: roads sprouted, airports rose, hospitals multiplied, and the energy sector leapt from 1,000 MW to 3,000 MW.
He reclaimed Mopani and Konkola, insisting Zambia must own its copper. He enshrined the 50% plus one rule, a constitutional gamble many thought suicidal, yet he carried development even to provinces that gave him “zero votes”—a biblical act of loving one’s enemies.
Dundumwezi, Bweenga and others saying “I am a President of all Zambians even those that did not vote for me.”
MAN OF MERCY AND COMPASSION LUNGU
Mercy tempered his stubbornness. When President Hichilema then in opposition, was jailed after a reckless highway chase, Lungu freed him after appeals from Baroness Patricia Scotland and Zambia’s archbishops Telesphore Mpundu His Grace Alick Banda.
“I am just an ordinary man who became President,” he often said, lamenting the bloodletting culture of Zambian politics.
In his memoir, he likened leadership to football: “Even in soccer, the referee wags a finger, then flashes yellow, only then aftrr will he flash red. But Zambians love red flags without warning. I don’t do that myself.”
Defeat in 2021 sent him into retirement in Chifwema, entitled to staff and benefits. Yet by 2022, humiliation became his daily bread: police summons for his wife Esther, son Daliso, daughter Tasila, cousin Charles Phiri
His party PF was seized in a palace coup by Miles Sampa on independence 2022.
On 28 October 2022, he declared his return to politics, sealing his fate as “enemy of the state.”
Denied permission to jog on roads he built, barred from church, markets, even medical travel, he endured indignities no other former president faced. His confidant Makebi Zulu revealed he instructed his family to reject government involvement in his burial.
Thus, one year on, his body lies frozen in Pretoria—unburied, contested, like Alexander the Great’s.
The voices of mourning echo: Fred M’membe called him “a man of contradictions, but one who deserves to be buried according to family wishes.”
His daughter Tasila lamented: “My father gave his life to Zambia, yet Zambia cannot give him rest.” His widow Esther wept: “They stripped him of honours in life, now they fight for his body in death. Why?”
And Brian Mundubile declared: “This is not just about President Edgar Lungu. It is about whether Zambia can forgive and heal. Let our leader rest according to family wishes”
The irony is cruel. President Hichilema was born the day before Lungu died. Mpezeni, king of the Ngoni, passed just before their shared anniversary, all in June.
History weaves strange patterns, mocking mortals with symmetry. The world recalls Patrice Lumumba, dissolved in acid, leaving only fragments; Alexander, unburied for two years as generals fought. Zambia now risks joining this tragic league.
As 5 June 2026 dawns, the sky over Zambia feels dark, birds fall silent, music stops.
The nation mourns, the continent watches, the world wonders: is this the Zambia we want—a nation that mocks its dead or one that embraces them in love?
Shakespeare warned: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Yet here, even the bones remain unburied.
The Bible whispers: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
And so Zambia stands at a crossroads. Will it bury its tormented president with dignity, or let his frozen body remain a battlefield? The irony bites, the satire stings, the mourning dazzles.
In Latin: “Spes et amor vincunt omnia” — Hope and love conquer all. May the spirit of Edgar Chagwa Lungu rest in peace, and in the blood of the Lamb of God eternally, when the Lord so wills.
5 June shall forever remain a major date in Zambia’s political history. Edgar Lungu, immortalized.
By Amb. Anthony Mukwita, Author of ‘Against All Odds: President Edgar Lungu’s Rough Journey to State House’.
Smart Eagles Daily Nation Zambia